A
s graduate students, we often hear the admonition, “This PhD can’t be just a 9-to-5!”—sometimes justified with “Science should be your passion!” This “hustle” attitude extends beyond the scientific sphere and is common in highpressure fields such as finance, computer science, athletics, and music. In fact, many high achievers often credit their productivity and satisfaction to a total immersion in their work. Spacefaring tycoon Elon Musk famously said that “Nobody can change the world on 40 hours a week”. In China, the 996 workweek—9 to 9, six days a week—has become the norm in tech, with Alibaba billionaire Jack Ma opining, “If we find things we like, 996 is not a problem … If you don’t like [your work], every minute is torture.” On the cynical side,
Youtube “wealth gurus” prey on this feelgood psychology of the hustle to market themselves and sell an unattainable lifestyle. For this issue of IMMPress, “Work to Live or Live to Work”, I compare the culture of motivation and workaholism in our academic labs to those of other fields and conclude that hustling harder could be effective only when combined with sensitive and equally dedicated coaching and championing on the part of the faculty. In medieval times, peasants worked from dawn to dusk—sixteen hours in the summer and eight in winter. But their work was also highly seasonal, and the calendar was filled with numerous saints’ days and holidays, so that they probably worked only 120 days per year. Christian philosophy conceived of work as a punishment for original
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sins but also of wealth as an opportunity for generosity and charity. Indeed, some have advanced the view that the ‘Protestant work ethic’ of the Puritans was the direct precursor to Muskian workaholism. Certainly, this subconscious attitude of self-sacrifice for a greater goal is still present in our research labs and serves as a powerful motivator through tough times. Funnily enough, the aspiration of Marxist thinkers of the Industrial Revolution was to create a post-capitalist world in which everyone had ample leisure time for artistic, creative and scientific pursuits. The Soviet economist Kropotkin famously wrote that “After bread has been secured, leisure is the supreme aim”–but in the same essay he mentioned that “when man has the possibility of varying occupations, and especially of alternating manual with in-
tellectual work, he can remain occupied without fatigue, and even with pleasure, for 10 or 12 hours a day,” suggesting that our profession—the trade of science—is admirable and worth dedicating our lives to. Fast forward to 2022, and our postcovid world is run by the gig economy, by Uber drivers and escooters, and by Amazon trucks—hardly the socialist utopia imagined two centuries ago. The “Great Resignation” is seeing workers quitting en masse or switching to workfrom-home or more creative ventures. Fatigued from robotic online covid-school, Gen Z has less hope and motivation than ever for their future career prospects. What will we offer them in the scientific sphere when they come of age in five to ten years? Will we treat them like gig workers, exploiting their scientific labor for publica-
tions they will never see their names on, or will we champion them, closely invested in their immediate success? In China, the backlash to the relentless drive to achievement— there amplified by deeply ingrained aspirations of national glory—has been extreme in another direction. The term “involution” (neijuan) describes how employees faced with impossible demands develop schemes and loopholes to hack the system. These tactics range from humorous (think Office Space or Dilbert) to severely corrupt (think entrance exam cheaters or milk powder scandals). The term was coined in the ‘60s by an agronomist in the Dutch East Indies and describes how an increase in input does not always linearly lead to an increase in output. Academic science in our own department also risks becoming “in-
